


When I Dance With You, We Move Like The Sea

by luninosity



Series: Holiday Fic [8]
Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Flowers, Holidays, Love, M/M, Memories, Mother's Day, Redemption, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 13:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This month's holiday fic is Mother’s Day (written June 2012). Discussions of what that means for Erik and Charles; falling in love on a balcony on a springtime afternoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I Dance With You, We Move Like The Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Title & opening lines from the Foo Fighters’ cover version of Cream’s “I Feel Free".

_you’re the sun and as you shine on me_   
_I feel free, I feel free, I feel free_

It’s a sunny day. Early spring. The air is cool, but not unpleasantly so. The sky, overhead, glows crystal-blue and endless, and the sun is warm, over Erik’s hands, as they move.

He’s standing out on one of the innumerable mansion balconies, in the light. Turning desolate scraps, carefully collected and preserved, into a single coherent shape.

He’d wanted to be alone, but that’s not going to happen, not in a house with a telepath who seems to pick up on every one of Erik’s moods, and then indulges them or not, depending on personal preference. Today is no different; Charles wanders out onto the terrace, and rests elbows on pale stone, and observes for a minute or two, and then clearly _has_ to ask.

“Are you…making a flower? Out of metal?”

“It’s Mother’s Day.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Oh…a gift? I mean…”

“In a way. Yes.”

Charles, who of course knows to the last detail exactly where Erik’s mother is now, doesn’t say anything else. Only waits.

Erik has learned patience over the years, it’s been a hard-won achievement, but Charles can _listen_ persuasively, and Erik finds himself wanting to talk. It’s frightening, in fact, how often he wants to talk to Charles. How deeply satisfying he finds it, when Charles laughs at his jokes, teases him right back, makes him smile, challenges him with chess and conversation. Charles loves conversation and words and tosses them out freely into the air; Erik’s never been unguarded enough, relaxed enough, for that.

And, because jewel-blue eyes are resting on his, he keeps talking now.

“She liked sunflowers. Daffodils. Anything with bright colors. She never liked seeing them cut, though. She preferred living flowers, not slowly dying blooms in vases.” These, being metal, will of course never die. A moment, trapped in time.

“This is lovely.” Charles looks as if he wants to pick up the tiny sculpture, and nearly does, being Charles, but evidently has enough tact to restrain himself. Miraculous. “Can I ask what you’re planning to do with it, when you finish? You don’t carry them around…”

“No.” He never has. Doesn’t travel with possessions. Nothing that might weigh him down.  The sun, above them, decides to hide behind a convenient wisp of cloud, at that.

He glances at blue eyes. Realizes that Charles has misinterpreted the refusal. Suddenly needs to explain, because now he’s feeling guilty. “I mean, no, I don’t take them with me. I…leave them. Wherever I am, on that day. So there are always small tributes to her. Wherever I’ve been.”

“Oh…Erik, that’s beautiful.” The tone is sincere. It always is. Charles means everything he says. Believes that the world is beautiful. That Erik’s capable of creating beauty.

He looks at the unfinished flower again. The sun ventures out from behind its cloud, and sends rays to caress the metal, encouragingly.

“Why haven’t you finished?” Trust Charles to ask the unwanted question.

He knows the truth will horrify all that kindness. He says the words anyway. “Because I haven’t killed enough men this year.”

“You…what?”

“They’re not made of random metal, you understand.”

“You…”

“I’ve used shirt buttons. Knives. Medals off of uniforms. So that she knows. What I’ve done for her. What I’m doing. And I’ve been _here_ , lately, Charles. With you. It isn’t enough.”

“It isn’t—” Charles stops. Not quite fast enough to hide the odd note, in that expressive voice. “You think she’d want that? The trophies you create from the dead you leave behind?”

“She can’t want anything, Charles. She’s dead, too. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing…Erik, you…do you know how amazing you are? You don’t, do you?”

“Not the word I expected, from you.”

“Yes, well…” Charles leans against the sun-warmed stone of the balcony. _Can I show you something?_

He could say no, and almost does—his privacy is one of the few things he has left, and he protects it jealously—but he takes a second to think about the request before answering, because that unnamed emotion is still lurking in that faded-English voice, trepidation scuttling through the shadows. And then he’s glad that he waited, once he realizes.

Charles never asks that question. Never offers pieces of himself to be shared.

Charles knows everything about everyone else, or could if he bothered to find out, but keeps his own memories locked away. Except right now. When he’s holding out one of those memories for Erik to see.

_Yes._

_…really?_

_Charles—_

The images interrupt his astonished response. And then he can’t speak, watching the visions unfold.

The mansion. Arrival in a foreign country. Glimpses of a woman. Charles’s mother; he knows that instinctively. Attractive, with the air of someone who knows it. Kind, in a rather distant way, at first, to her son, in the way she might’ve been kind to a stray dog or cat: it might as well stay, it’s the charitable thing to do. And then a shock of _red/black/pain_ , something Charles doesn’t quite let him see. And then all the alcohol. The vague kindness sliding into uncaring haze.

She’s present, there through all the years, but not really there at all. Not there when younger Charles, all wide eyes and floppy hair, brings her roses on her birthday. Not there when Charles, bleeding—and though Charles isn’t showing him that either Erik knows it’s not the first time—falls into the dimness of her bedroom and begs _please, make him stop, I know you can, you married him, please._

The roses wither and die and no one except Charles himself ever bandages his wounds and the pain turns into hate and the hate turns into resignation, and then acceptance, and then only silence.

The last flicker of memory is of, not a funeral, but an announcement, in the mail. A notice of passing. A dry lawyer’s comment to the effect that she’d left whatever possessions remained to her, not to her second husband or stepson, but to her own child. The house. A surprising amount of unspent money. The rose garden.

Charles doesn’t show him these things to make him feel guilty, or to persuade him of anything, or to compete with him as far as terrible childhoods might go. Erik can tell that without asking. None of those reasons would arise, behind those blue eyes, in any case.

Charles only wants him to know that he’s not alone.

_Precisely._

_Charles, you—_ He could say _I never knew_ , but that’s obvious. _What happened? In that moment, I mean—_ Even the blood-black smear over that interruption had hurt. Still does. _Can you—if you don’t want to tell me you don’t have to but—_

_Oh. I’m sorry; I haven’t…tried showing even that much to anyone, before. I didn’t mean for it to hurt. Here—_ A rush of coolness, mint and snow and respite, soothing away the incipient ache. _And…I can tell you, if you’d really like to know._

_Please._

_My father shot himself in the head,_ Charles says, and shrugs, not physically, and looks away, into the blinding sunlight. _That’s what happened._

_Charles—!_

_It’s all right. It was a very long time ago. I’m not asking for your pity_. Charles runs a restless hand over the rough stone, finds a crack, worries at it with a fingernail. Out loud, offers, “I am sorry about the headache, though.”

“What headache?” This earns a smile. And all at once Erik feels invincible. He’s gotten Charles to smile.

Charles’d used the word _amazing_ , earlier. About Erik. But Charles is the one who can recall how to smile, in the wake of horror that, if not as all-encompassing as Erik’s own, is more personal, and equally cruel.

“You _are_ amazing,” Charles says. “Because everything you do, every act you undertake, they’re all about love, Erik. You love so brilliantly.”

“I,” Erik starts, and then stops, staring at him. That’s not true. That can’t be true. But Charles knows him better than anyone, better than Erik knows himself, and if Charles believes that Erik’s foundations are built on love, not hate, then maybe, just maybe, it might be true. But the idea shakes him to the core.

“You build flowers,” Charles says, ocean-current eyes looking directly into his own, “out of where you are, and what you’ve done. For her. On Mother’s Day. And your first impulse was to ask me what was wrong. I don’t need to be in your head to know that you’re a good person, Erik.”

Erik still can’t talk. He wrenches his gaze away and stares at the bleached-stone railing, instead. Lets his eyes wander across the half-completed flower, along the meandering crack, up to flesh-and-blood fingertips, where Charles has continued unconsciously burrowing nails into rock. The sunbeams settle on that hand, and on Erik’s shoulder.

Of course he would ask Charles about whatever might be wrong. Of course he’d try to help. There aren’t any other possible responses, not any that’d be acceptable, anyway. And Charles doesn’t want pity, isn’t asking for that, but what Erik’s feeling isn’t pity.

Charles tells him in so many ways that he’s not alone. Every day. He hasn’t been very good at listening, but he’s listening now. Charles _is_ a good person, the kind of person who can believe that everyone, even Erik, can be redeemed, can be a good person, too. Charles knows about darkness, and chooses light.

_It’s not that simple_ , Charles murmurs, and Erik could be annoyed about the eavesdropping but isn’t. _I have to believe that—I have to have hope, or else I could—you do know about darkness, as well as I do. I could be worse than you, even you, could ever imagine. So I need to believe that the world can be saved. That we’re worth saving, in it. I’m not as selfless as you think._

_No,_ Erik answers. _You’re not. And I love you_.

There’s astonishment, but only for a split second. And then Charles smiles. _I know you do. And I love you._

_Yes, you do. And that IS amazing._ He reaches out. Gathers that restive hand in his, just after one thumbnail catches and breaks, against stone.

“Ouch,” Charles grumbles, and Erik says _I’m sorry_ , and then brings the wounded thumb to his lips and kisses it, gently. The blue eyes widen, in all the sunlight. _Erik—_

_Better?_

_Ah…yes?_

_Good._

_THAT, however, is very…_

_Very what, Charles?_

_…distracting!_

Erik stops kissing the other fingers, tasting pale skin with lips and tongue and teeth, long enough to laugh.

_I love you._

_And I love you._

_What you said, earlier…you said you’ve been here. With me. And that hasn’t been enough._ The words’re a question, under the golden burn of the light.

Erik shakes his head. Pulls Charles closer, into his arms; no resistance, only one more hesitant and wordless smile _. It wasn’t_. _Then_. He doesn’t do either of them the disservice of pretending that he’d only meant the flower. What he does offer, once again, is truth. _But this might be. I’m not giving up—I’m going to find him, and I’m going to kill him—I’ll never not want that, Charles. But that’s not everything I want. Not now. And you should—I want you to know that, too._

_I know. All of that._ This time it’s Charles who kisses him, sweet and bright and unembarrassed, on the balcony in the middle of the afternoon. _And I’ll be here beside you. Always. Because you’ll always want to come home._

“Home,” Erik says, testing the word out loud, and thinks _yes_.

“Home,” Charles agrees. “Here. Or, possibly, in the bedroom…” _One more thing_.

“I could definitely want the bedroom. With you in the bed, in the bedroom.” _What?_

_About this year’s flower…you said you make them out of where you are, what you’ve done, that year. And you said you’ve been here, with me._ Charles pauses. Unrolls one sleeve, then the other.

“That’s the opposite of getting undressed, Charles.” He’s not sure where they’re going, with this. Too many emotions, in conflict, at this moment. Good ones, he thinks, sensations that might be happiness but that are confusing all the same.

“I know.” Charles pulls off one cufflink. Then the other. They make tiny delighted clinks when he sets them down beside the uncompleted blossom, on the wall. _Could you use these? If you need more material, to work with?_

He pushes his sleeves up again, after. They refuse to stay in place; Charles shrugs, when they tumble down the second time, and gives up, smiling. Erik puts one arm around him, and puts the other hand out, and touches metal, lingeringly warm from all that skin, or maybe that’s only Erik’s imagination.

The cufflinks want to be held. They gaze at him, softly, and ask. To them, to Charles, to the sunlight, he says, “Yes. I think I could.”


End file.
